Microsoft upgrades L.A. Live lounge with new technology-led features

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Microsoft has now revamped the once mostly empty lower lobby of the Microsoft Theater located at AEG’s L.A. LIVE entertainment and sports district in downtown Los Angeles. The new Microsoft Lounge can be used for multiple purposes even when the Microsoft Theater is not hosting a larger event. It can be used as a hospitality space for other events happening in and around the L.A. LIVE district.

The revamped Microsoft Lounge is now surrounded by the plush décor of old Hollywood speakeasies with antique furniture, brick walls, the workings of a 1930s piano encased in a glass coffee table sitting atop an antique 1920s Persian Heriz rug and 45 hanging lamps created from recycled cardboard.

“It’d been a blank space, under-utilized, but it had great potential,” says Mike Bernstein, vice president of research for Wasserman, a full-service lifestyle consulting agency. “It needed some love and thought, and it took a real partnership to transform it to a space designed to engage and attract fans.”

Microsoft is a technology company at its core, so they have used technology to bring unique experiences around art installations. One of the artist installations include a Kinect-powered wall of wooden tiles that moves based on human motions. It is made up of 80 Ultramotion motors and 160 wooden tiles, and is reactive to visitors by using the Kinect sensor. It moves and illuminates with different colors in response to human motion.

Second installation is a 40-foot projection mapped wall made of high-density foam. They are using Kinect sensors to track user movements to transform their motion into artistic content, which is projected in real-time using three Barco RLM-W14 large venue projectors.

Third installation allows visitors to take photos superimposed on backgrounds the AEG staff can pick. It will align with artists or events happening at the venue at the same time, and visitors can then post the photos to social media.

Fourth installation is a digital mosaic mural that is focuses on documentation and sharing. It is powered by a software running on a Microsoft Surface with custom UI to manually control effects and turn on-off all elements within the space.

Check out some more photos of this lounge below.

Learn more about the new Microsoft Lounge here.

More about the topics: Hollywood, L.A. LIVE, Los Angeles, Microsoft Lounge, Microsoft Theater

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